Ask a sales team where revenue is lost and they will talk about competitors and price. Look at the records and you usually find something less dramatic: deals that leaked at a handoff.
The chain
Lead → visit → opportunity → quote → approval → order → delivery → invoice → collection.
Each arrow is a handoff. Each handoff is a chance for delay or error.
Where it leaks
| Handoff | What goes wrong |
|---|---|
| Lead to first contact | Enquiries sit in a phone or inbox, and nobody calls. |
| Visit to opportunity | What the buyer said is in the rep’s head, not on record. |
| Opportunity to quote | Prices are copied from an old quote. |
| Quote to order | The order is retyped, and lines or prices change. |
| Order to delivery | Stock is not reserved, so the order waits. |
| Delivery to invoice | The invoice is made separately and misses items. |
| Invoice to cash | Payments are not matched, so follow-up is late or wrong. |
None of these is a big failure. Together, they decide how much of your pipeline becomes cash, and when.
Close each gap
- Log every lead with an owner. If nobody owns it, nobody calls.
- Record visits where they happen. On the phone, on site.
- Quote from agreed prices. Not from the last quote.
- Approve exceptions before sending. Not after delivery.
- Turn the quote into the order. Do not retype it.
- Reserve stock against the order. So delivery is not a surprise.
- Invoice from the order. So what was agreed is what is billed.
- Record payments against invoices. So everyone sees what is still owed.
What builds up
When the chain runs on one record, you keep each customer’s history: what they asked for, what they were quoted, what they bought and how they paid. The next quote is faster, and follow-up starts from facts.
How AIMS handles it
AIMS V2 and AIMS IQ run the whole chain. Leads and visits sit on customer records, quotes come from agreed prices and go through approvals, the approved quote becomes the order, invoices are raised from the order, and collections are recorded against invoices by customer and branch. See it stage by stage in the lead to cash journey.